


let you out into the world

by Imkerin



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Extra Treat, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-07 15:19:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7719829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imkerin/pseuds/Imkerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kloppo and Zeljko visit Liverpool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let you out into the world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jjjat3am](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/gifts).



Jürgen calls at four in the morning. Zeljko had been sleeping, like a normal person, and he’s still mostly asleep when he picks up the phone, fumbling it to his ear without looking at the ID, but he wakes up fast enough when Jürgen says, without giving him time to answer properly, “Do you want to go to England?”

He sits up, scrubs a hand over his face and through his hair, and shoves off, heading for the bathroom: this promises to be a conversation that he doesn’t think he wants to take lying down. “What?”

“England: do you want to go?” The old playful grin is back in Jürgen’s voice; it’s been rare, the last few months-- the last year now, really. It’s good to hear it, no matter the timing.

Zeljko squints into the mirror. His reflection squints back, hair sticking on end. He looks at his phone, finally, noting the time. “Now?”

Somewhat to his surprise Jürgen says, “Yes, now, why not!”

“Why not,” he says, shaking his head, and laughs a little. Well. Why not? “Do you have the tickets already?”

“Hmm,” Jürgen says, “Well, no. But I can manage that by the time you get your pants on.”

“We’ll see about that,” Zeljko says, and hangs up on him.

 

They argue about it on the way to the airport a bit, mostly for the sake of having the argument: it feels good to haggle with Jürgen over something unimportant, even something as ridiculous as how quickly he can get dressed -- which Jürgen ought to know very well himself already anyway, and he tells him so -- and he can tell by the width of his grin and the cheerfulness he’s broadcasting in every direction that he’s enjoying it too. 

It isn’t until they’ve parked and headed for the terminal that Zeljko changes the subject from the aerodynamic properties of his underwear vs. the speed of Jürgen’s keyboard, and only then because it’s likely the last chance he’ll have before they’re surrounded by people and more likely to be overheard: “So, where are we going?”

“London,” Jürgen says. He looks at Zeljko sideways, still smiling. “I already booked the car there. Probably before you had your socks on.”

“I doubt that,” Zeljko says, returning the glance in exactly the same way. Jürgen laughs loudly and bumps him with his shoulder.

The flight is short enough and mostly quiet: Jürgen pokes through his phone, Zeljko leans his head against the window and catches up on the last few hours of sleep he’d missed, and whether or not his socks or the car came first, it’s there waiting for them when they arrive.

“Liverpool?” Zeljko asks, when they’re safely, privately in it. He hadn’t really wanted to ask before: naming a thing makes it real, in a way, and he’d been perhaps selfishly enjoying the last bright bubbles of Jürgen’s enthusiasm the way they were before. He knows they’ll survive the move, if they decide to make it, but -- they’ll be different afterwards. They always are, just a little.

Jürgen looks at him and smiles: not the grin, but the softer one, the one for when they’re alone like this. “It sounded like a place that could use us,” he says, which isn’t quite ‘it sounds like it could be home’ -- but perhaps it could grow into that.

“Well,” Zeljko says. “Since we’re already here, we might as well go and have a look.”

 

Driving north, they take turns messing about with the radio, making an informal competition out of being able to find something listenable that they both soundly and repeatedly lose until eventually they give up and Jürgen turns it off again. “I watched a lot of their interviews last night,” he says. “Terrible accent. Worse than that.” He waves one hand at the dashboard, then tucks both behind his neck, leaning back and watching Zeljko drive rather than looking out the window at the cool gray day.

“Should I turn around, then?” Zeljko asks, raising an eyebrow at the road. There’s quite a bit of traffic in either direction that makes it hard to look away for long.

Jürgen pats him on the knee companionably. “I’ll find a way to deal with it. You can sneak off like usual and not have to listen to a word of it.”

“You call me the brain for a reason,” Zeljko reminds him, mostly to hear him laugh. He’s a bit surprised that it doesn’t sting anymore, remembering that send-off, though he knows Jürgen would never have meant it like that. At the time it had felt -- well, no need to dig it up again. He reaches down and squeezes Jürgen’s hand briefly where it’s resting on his leg, feeling him turn his palm underneath his hand so that their fingers mesh.

 

They pull into a nondescript hotel parking lot and Jürgen lends him a baseball cap. (“This doesn’t look suspicious at all,” -- “Better than nothing.”) Instead of heading for the stadium or the practice field, though, Jürgen just wanders the city a bit, poking about at restaurants, streets, parks, getting a feel for things, listening to people. Zeljko follows, half watching the city, half just watching Jürgen. 

It’s hard to say, hard to guess whether he’s finding himself at home or not; he doesn’t look unhappy, but this is a rather bigger jump than they’ve made before, the two of them. Zeljko thinks they could do well with the club -- he’d thought it over briefly, in a distant sort of way, when the news came down about Rodgers -- but that isn’t why they’re here. This is a different kind of investigation than he and Peter do.

“Have they asked, yet?” he asks eventually as they’re sitting together on a park bench, sharing an order of vinegared chips bought because Jürgen had declared it had felt like the thing to do at the time. Zeljko had refrained from twitting him about respecting the diet plan in favor of getting a pair of drinks to go with it.

“Unofficially,” Jürgen says. He turns a chip over in his fingers, inspecting it, and takes a bite. “They’re not half bad.”

“No,” Zeljko agrees, taking another for himself and leaning comfortably against Jürgen’s side. “They’re not.”


End file.
